Transformers

Beast Wars

Flesh versus Metal

Part one

 

 

 

 

A flash of bright light appears in the sky, like a star which reached the end of its days. An explosion which can only be noticed by the ones who look up to the night sky.

A cat-like creature on his night patrol, notices the bright star up there in the dark sky as his thoughts wander of. He slowly stands up on all four paws and tilts his head to the side as he wonders what is happening. The star blinks for a second and then it fades to disappear into the darkness.

“Wow, you don’t see that day… A dieing star… Reminds me of a Spark,” the creature mutters and wants to look around to see if the border is still clear when the bright star appears again and seems to fall down,” a falling star? No… wait…”

The falling star becomes bigger and brighter and it heading towards the East. It might be a meteor that will crash in a few minutes on this planet. The creature suddenly looks excited and jumps on a rock to get a better view of what came down from space with tremendous speed and heath. Because he is young and full with ideas, this little cat wants to follow it to see what it is and would forget all about his task that was given to him earlier. He jumps off the rock and runs as fast as he can to where the object will land.

He moves fast, this yellow and black spotted cat creature. He is the fastest creature on the whole planet and can keep up with it for a long time. But he is stubborn, unwise and easily to manipulate with things he wants to know. Things he has never seen before, like what just came out off the sky.

“Optimus to Cheetor. Come in Cheetor.”

The cheetah keeps running as a familiar voice sounds through his head and he responses a bit out off breath:” Cheetor here! What’s up, Big Bot?”

“Rhinox said that our sensors picked up a trace of a spacecraft that came into orbit not too long ago. It might be from Cybertron, but we have to make sure first. I want you to head towards it before the Preds do. ”

“Nothing to worry, Big Bot! I am already on my way! Cheetor out.”

 

Cheetor, the youngest of the Maximals who would trust his leader Optimus Primal with his life heads towards the East to catch up with the crashing spacecraft. Maybe it’s help from Cybertron to get them off this planet. Or maybe it contains stasis pods with new recruits.

Cheetor’s head is flowing over with ideas of what it might be, but he snaps out off it when the burning spacecraft flies over his head and crashes 50 yards away. Cheetor skids to a stop and breaths heavily in and out as he watches the explosion in awe, feeling the earth under him tremble thanks to the blow.

“Oh no… I hope everything is alright!”

He rushes over to where the craft landed and transforms into his robot mode as he runs up a hill to look down at the burning wreck. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head.

“I am too late… Everything is destroyed in the crash…,” he sighs in disappointment and he opens his com-link to contact the Maximal base,” Cheetor to Optimus. Come in, Big Bot…”

“Optimus here. What did you find, Cheetor?”

“Nothing, Optimus. Everything that was in that craft is destroyed by the crash. I couldn’t see what type of spacecraft it was and if it was Cybertronian, but I am sure it wasn’t…”

“Well, that’s just prime. That’s enough for tonight, Cheetor. Come back to the base immediately, before the Predacons see you if they arrive by the crash sight.”

“Sure do, Big Bot… Cheetor out…”

Cheetor lowers his arm as he shuts off the com-link and rubs over his nose. What a shame, just like a dieing star. There could have been something of value in there, like weapons, recruits, parts to rebuild the base or…

Cheetor tilts his head up when he hears a strange sound and turns his gaze to the burning craft. It sounds like… banging against a piece of thick metal… and a crying for help… someone crying for help!

 

“Well, what is it?”

Megatron, the leader of the Predacons waits impatient for his minion to answer his question as he looks towards a screen which shows the location of the crash-sight. Scorponok looks down at the control panel using his scissor hands to find information about what fell out off the sky.

“It’s a spacecraft, but not from Cybertron or any of the Alliances.”

“An alien vessel?” asks Megatron intrigued and pushes himself up from his seat to take a closer look at the coordinates of the crash. Scorponok shakes his head and looks towards his leader.

“It could be possible. Our database has no information about the vessel or what might be inside. Or at least what is left from it.”

Megatron rubs over his chin as he pulls a face and says:” Assemble all the Predacons, Scorponok. We have a vessel to claim, before the Maximals do.”

“Yes, Megatron!” Scorponok squeals, seeming he is pleased about the fact that Megatron asked him to get the Predacons on the road. He quickly rushes off to find the others, while Megatron stares at the flickering lights on the screen.

“I wonder… Could this be a connection…?

 

 

“Jumping gyros! There is someone in the craft! Hold on! I am coming!” Cheetor screams and runs down the hill towards the spacecraft without thinking of the danger. He heads to where the banging comes from and listens carefully, a bit holding back because of the flames and the heath,” yes, I hear you! Take it easy, I’ll get you out off there in no time!”

He finally finds the door of the craft which is busted in and he grabs for the sides to pull it open with all the strength he has. It doesn’t budge an inch. He lets go and sets a step back, growling softly.

“Get away from the door! I am going to blast it out! Stand back! ... Whoever you are…” he mutters and takes out his Fusion Rifle to aim it at the blast door,” All right! Going to shoot… Now!”

He pulls the trigger and the door budges in by the blow, but not enough. Cheetor jumps over to the door and kicks against it to get it further open and a hand appears grasping for something to hold on to. Cheetor notices it, takes the wrist in his golden metallic hand, and gently pulls as he tries to open the door further.

“Try to squeeze through the opening! I don’t think I can get this door further open! Hurry!”

Cheetor pulls harder on the hand to help the person to get through the opening he made and in a nano click he stumbles backwards, pulling someone along with him. They lands in the rubble of the craft and the rocks and don’t get up for a moment. Cheetor takes a deep breath and looks towards the craft, hearing a beeping sound coming from it.

“What the…?” he slowly sits up and listens carefully to the beeping, the person besides him slowly leaning up. Cheetor narrows his yellow optics and then holds back a yelp,” that craft is going to blow! We have to get away from here!”

He quickly gets up and without saying a word more; he grabs for the person’s hand again and runs away from the burning craft to get behind the hill for cover.

The beeping stops and a big explosions follows to destroy the craft even more, sending parts of it through the sky to land a few yards further away. The blow of the explosion fling Cheetor and the one he saved a bit away and they both roll down the hill with all the winces and groaning they can bring out.

Cheetor stands up slowly and rubs over his head, a bit unsteady, but he manages to keep standing.

“Wow, talk about thrill… Hey, are you alright?”

Cheetor looks down at the person and blinks with his optics as he sees what he saved from the craft.

Silver hair hang in front of her face and a red slightly torn bodysuit clings tight to her body like a second skin. A broken piece of green glass lies beside her feet in the grass and she has her arms wrapped tight around herself, trembling softly as she keeps her head down.

Cheetor bents a bit through his knees and slowly reaches his hand out to the creature. He never has seen something like this before. He only heard and read about these type of creatures when he was on Cybertron. The creatures that helped the Autobots to win from the Decepticons so many years away from this place.

“You are okay now, hmm? I am Cheetor. Who are you?”

The silver haired creature suddenly tilts her head up, revealing blue silver eyes and another piece of broken green glass that covers half of her face above her nose. She looks shocked, angry and sad and when she notices Cheetor she quickly crawls back up against the hill. She looks pale, her mouth opening and closing as she is gasping for air and her eyes opened wide.

“Stay away from me!” she yells with a high trembling voice as she sets her nails in the sand to get more grip as she tries to get away.

“Hold on there! I am not going to hurt you! I am the one who pulled you out off the craft!”

The silver haired human quickly rolls over and pushes herself up her feet to run up the hill to get away from the robot that scares the hell out off her. She stops immediately when she sees the wreck down there and stops breathing. There is nothing left then a pile of burning rubble. No life signs or what even comes close to it.

“Mom…? Dad…? Oh no…” she whispers and feels the strength in her legs flow away. She collapses and Cheetor runs up the hill to catch her, before she falls down. She tries to get lose from him and places a hand in his face to push him away,” Let me go!! Leave me alone!!”

Cheetor holds on to her, not knowing what to do with her. It seems she lost her mind and it will take a while before she calms down.

“I said let me go!!”

The human kicks backwards and manages to make Cheetor stumble back a bit and she runs down the hill as she pulls herself free from his grip. She runs past the wreck to climbs up a wall of rock, just to get away from this nightmare.

“Hey, wait up! I am only trying to help! Wait!”

“You are not going to help anyone, Maximal kitten. No… Catch that human!”

A low and demanding voice suddenly sounds through the air and the human freezes on her spot, her hands pressing against the wall. Cheetor looks up to where the voice came from and sees the enemy has arrived.

“The Preds! Hey you! Come over here! They are dangerous!” Cheetor motions to the human, but she doesn’t dare to move as she stares up to the six robots who stand on top of the rocks, all aiming their weaponry at her and the Maximal.

“As I suspected… It is too afraid to do anything. Get it!”

Megatron, the leader of the Predacons stands his ground as his five minions jump off the rocks to get the human and Cheetor. The human sets a few steps back and then turns around to run towards Cheetor as the four Predacons lands with a loud thud on the ground.

Cheetor pulls out his Fusion Rifle again and waits for the human to stand behind him so he can open fire. He grins as the five Predacons come closer and starts to shoot, slowly walking backwards to get more time and space to improvise if he has to.

But as Cheetor hoped for, he doesn’t need to improvise in this unfair battle. A war cry rises up in the sky and a bronze and silver robot jumps down the hill followed by a bigger green and brown coloured robot.

“Let’s kick some Pred’s ants, waddaya say to that?” the bronze and silver bot says when he stands besides Cheetor. He is smaller then the spotted youngster, but shows a bit more spunk and fun in the battle.

“Hey Rattrap, glad you are willing to join this party!” Cheetor laughs as he keeps shooting towards the Predacons.

The green and brown robot joins the two Maximals and holds up two chainguns and aims for Megatron who still stands on top of the rocks:  “At least you have a good excuse towards Optimus now. He started to wonder what took you so long.”

“I’ll tell you later! First let’s have some fun with the Preds!”

The two other Maximals nod in agreement and rush into the battle to pull a counter attack, it is three against six now.

The human who hides behind a rock, cringes at the sounds of blasts and war, her face hidden behind her hands as she tries to cover her ears. How did she end up in all this? How could this have happened?

A blast hits the rock she is hiding behind and with a scream of fear she jumps up in a reflex to run for cover, tripping over her own feet as she runs for her life.

“There goes the human! Tarantulas! Go get it!” Megatron demands with a growl, still standing on top of the wall to watch the battle below him. The spider bot Tarantulas cackles in response and transforms into his beast mode to pursuit the silver haired human, making use of his eight legs to cross the battle field without being seen.

The human drops herself down behind a metal plate that got buried half into the ground thanks to the blast of the explosions and breaths deep in and out, holding back the tears.

“Oh my god… I never asked for this... All I wanted was to leave Earth with mom and dad to be safe…” she shakes her head and pulls her legs up to her chest,” and still I am the middle of a war between some…some… stupid robots!”

“Well, aren’t you a depressing bug in Megatron’s system, huh?” a hissing voice sounds from behind the plate and the human quickly sits up without even looking around. Everything scares her terribly and all she wants it to get away from all this. She starts to run again and Tarantulas leaps over the plate to catch up with her. The tapping of his running eight legs over to stone ground make the human shiver and she tries to run faster. Behind her Tarantulas jumps against the wall beside them and runs over it to by-pass the young human. He jumps again and as he flies through the air, a blue web-like net gets shot towards his prey. She yelps when she sees it coming towards her and lifts her arms up in protection as the net hits her with some force. She falls against the wall, the web sticking to it like glue and with her trapped between it. She tries to push herself off the wall, but the web is so thick and sticky that it’s just a waste of her strength. As she tries to get lose, something through her whole body stings her, but doesn’t hurt that badly. She can hear the spider Predacon laugh in his own mischievous way as he comes closer, but stops when he sees she is still struggling.

“How can this be…?”

He transforms into his robot mode and stands besides the human to take a good look at her. She is as active as a virus in a main program.

“The cybervenom should have knocked you out. Interesting… Why are you still awake?”

“You fool… Humans don’t have cyborg parts to get a taste of your pathetic cybervenom…”

Tarantulas tilts his head up and looks around, looking surprised:” who said that? Show yourself!”

“With pleasure, eight legged Predacon freak!”

Something heavy suddenly falls down on top of Tarantulas with a screech and he slumps through his knees by the sudden pounce. Sharp thin objects push through the purple shell of his helmet, knees pressing in his back to keep him pinned on the ground and the losing of power makes him fall into stasis-lock.

The brown furred and winged fembot stands up once the Predacon falls limp and completely still and she looks over towards the trapped human through her green optics. She wiggles with her metallic sharp fingers as some Energon energy crackles around the fingertips, the energy she just drained from Tarantulas to knock him K.O.

The human looks her way with her cheek pressed against the wall thanks to the web, but she is wise enough to remain silent as the fembot comes closer.

NightRay, the bat fembot who choose for being Neutral in the Beast Wars, lifts one of her hands up and the sharp nails grow bit longer. She slashes them down at the web and rips a part open so the human is able to move a bit. She lifts her other hand up and slashes again, missing the human by an inch. This one reacts with a soft scream, closing her eyes tight as she presses herself against the wall, while the web starts to fall down to the ground. She is free.

NightRay lowers her arms and stares towards the human who slowly opens her eyes to see if everything is safe. She slowly turns her gaze towards the Decepticon and gulps, wondering what she wants from her.

“Come… Let’s get out off here while we still have a chance…”

The human arches a brow, looking confused and slowly pushes herself off the wall as NightRay lets her hand rest on her hip.

“They will come after you if you stay here. Megatron wants you, no matter the cost. I know how that feels, I experienced it. Now come… This way,” NightRay says with a calm voice and walks the opposite direction from where the battle is being held.

The human hesitates for a moment. She wants to follow the strange robot to get away from all the violence, but can she trust her? She looks down to the ground and then towards Tarantulas who still lies like dead in the sand. She feels a wave of panic coming over her and quickly she heads to where NightRay is, suddenly not wanting to be alone anymore.

NightRay looks over her shoulder to the human who catches up with her and arches both eyebrows as she sees how scared she is. She looks back ahead of her, not wanting to talk to the thing made out off flesh and bones and walks further, the sounds of war slowly fading. All she wants is to get her away from Megatron. Ever since they made a dangerous contact, she doesn’t want him to get what he so much desires; power.

“Where are you taking me?”

NightRay’s organic ears twitch when they catch the vibrations of the human’s voice; soft, almost whispering and the high tones contain trembling of fear. She doesn’t look towards the human to make eye contact and keeps walking, saying:” somewhere safe…”

“Are you with that yellow robot? The one who saved me from the craft before it got destroyed?”

NightRay narrows her optics. If she is guessing right, the human must be talking about the young cheetah Maximal. She never took the energy to remember his name. And at least now she knows what the big explosion was she saw in the distance.

“I am with nobody.”

“You are alone? Isn’t that dangerous?”

NightRay stops and turns around to face the human, a smile with mock crossing her silver face.

“Dangerous? Heh, if I am right, then my past was even more dangerous then what was going on around you a moment ago. I do not fear the ones who were fighting each other to get a hold on you.”

The human nods and stands besides NightRay, rubbing her hands together in a nervous way.

“So…”

NightRay nods and sits down on a rock to look at the endless plain ahead of her. She crosses her furry arms over her chest and says:” So I am going to bring you somewhere safe.”

“But why?”

“Because I don’t want that purple T-rex to get what he wants so badly. He doesn’t deserve it,” the fembot growls under her breath. She is still angry about their encounter. How dare he to act like someone who was so great in War, the one she felt and still feels such loyalty to.

“I see…” the human mutters and slowly and carefully she sits down besides NightRay; not too close, but also not too far away. She looks down at her feet and says:” Thank you…”

NightRay snaps out off her staring towards the horizon and looks down at the silver haired human, not saying anything in return.

The human smiles weakly and pulls her shoulders a bit up, folding her hands together to let them rest in her lap:” I am Trixy… And you?”

NightRay notices how shy this human can be and she looks away from her again, saying:” NightRay, my name is NightRay.”

“NightRay… Odd name, but a nice one.”

The fembot smirks and wants to remark something on the human’s name as a come-back, but swallows it in. She rubs over her nose and then over the Decepticon symbol on her fore head and stands up from the rock with a sigh.

“Many years ago, humans where the cause of what I am now. They defeated me and my comrades with help of the Good Ones… and now look at me. I am helping a great-grandchild of the humans who wrote history in Cybertronian History Files. The ones who made it true that the Autobots ruled over the Decepticons and that the Maximals rule over the Predacons… Ruled over me… Ironic, isn’t it?”

Trixy blinks slowly; not really understanding what NightRay is talking about and sees her shrug. The bat Decepticon looks towards the human with a serious look on her metallic face and says: “Time to go and get you somewhere safe...”

 

 

Because the human disappeared all the sudden and Tarantulas didn’t return to Megatron, it was only a matter of time before the first “retreat” was yelled over the battlefield. And not long after that, the three Maximals where the only ones left standing by the wreck of the spacecraft.

“Thanks guys. That was really close.”

“Ah, nothin’ to it. Always fun to beat some Preds between the daily routines,” smirks Rattrap and then shrugs, lowering his weapon,” so eehh, what took you so long to head back to base? I dun believe that those stinkin’ Preds were so quick by this… this… thing?” He looks over to what is left of the craft and scratches over his head.

“No, it was something else. There was someone stuck in the craft. I was about to leave, when I heard her cry for help. I had to get her out off there, before the craft would explode.”

“Oh, it’s a ‘her’. No wonder it took so much of your time to get back to base,” Rattrap grins and Cheetor looks at him like he is about to use him as a cat-toy in a tin can.

“And did you manage to get her out?”

“Yeah, but the only problem is… I am afraid she ran off…” Cheetor sighs with disappointment and throws a quick glance around to see if he might spot the human somewhere,” the Preds didn’t catch her, that’s for sure… I really wonder where she is.”

“Was the “she” a Maximal or a Predacon?”

Cheetor looks up to Rhinox and shakes his head like he wants to get rid of a flaw, saying with enthusiasm:” No, no! She wasn’t even cybernetic, she was completely organic. In fact, I bet it was a human being!”

Rhinox and Rattrap both look surprised at Cheetor’s discovery and Rattrap is the first to respond:” Kid; there ain’t no humans on this mud ball and I never heard of humans fallin’ out off the sky.”

“She didn’t just fall!” snaps the youngster to the rat Maximal,” her spacecraft crashed down and … I believe her parents were still in the ship as it exploded. She is all alone out there, who knows what might happen. We have got to find her, Big Green,” Cheetor points his attention to his big buddy, knowing Rattrap won’t take this as serious as it should be and looks quite desperate,” let me go and look for her, Rhinox.”

“I think it is best if we return to the base first. We need to inform Optimus about what happened and maybe Sentinel is able to find her on the scanners. If we would run around like crazy, we will never be able to find the human.”

“But Rhinox…”

“No, Cheetor. We are going back to the base. Now come on…” he sighs and transforms into his beast mode to head back to the Axalon. Rattrap follows his lead and almost bumps into Rhinox as he stands still to see if Cheetor really comes along.

Cheetor looks around, not wanting to go back. He wants to find that human. What if the Predacons run into her? His face shows doubt and concern, but when he hears Rhinox calling for him, he shakes his head and goes into beast mode. With his head low he follows his comrades home.